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LJ Idol Week 17 - Wabi-Sabi
Dec. 6th, 2024 05:31 pmThis is a story about my heart and my body, the middle-aged bag of flesh that totes around my soul, which is in a state of flux.
It was once considered a thing to behold, soft in the right places, hard in the right places, curvy where curves are desirable and covered with peachy soft skin. That body spent a great deal of time uncovered, in tiny bikinis on beaches and hiking in short shorts and frankly, fully proudly nude, dancing in front of a lover or riding them into personal oblivion while sweat deliciously rolled down my back and the backs of my shaking knees.
It is now, first and foremost, a mother's body, because if you ride your lovers enough, at some point biology will win. It is now a sturdy body, usually covered in sensible clothes. One that carried three children - two that lived. One that nursed them and cradled them and taught them to walk, to dance, to swim. One that took head butts to the teeth on trampolines and indelicate pokes in the ass from toy lightsabers and frankly, years of neglect as that body became a counselor and tutor and chauffeur for the tiny humans it had birthed.
How does that Stevie Nicks line go? Time makes you bolder, children get older, I'm getting older too..."
The cruelest trick life has played on me was that of motherhood. Of creating two precious souls within my own body, then violently expelling them into the world where it immediately became my greatest responsibility and greatest joy to protect and nurture them until they are confident enough that they could LEAVE me. To raise beautiful, brilliant, hilarious children - so cool I'd rather spend my time with them instead of almost any other person on this Earth - with the goal that, if I did it right, they'd be prepared to walk away from me as they left to start beautiful, brilliant lives of their own. What in the actual fuck, Universe!? What kind of raw deal are you selling me? But you do it, as a parent, you do it with all the love in your desperate, hopeful heart, because nothing means more to you than they do, even knowing one day they must go.
That's where I'm at. That's where my children are. On the cusp of stepping out forever, they are now both in college, one still living with me and the other two hours away at school and truly, it took a thousand years to get here and absolutely no time at all. I look at the exhausted faces of young parents, the frustrated scowls of fathers of toddlers and mothers of middle schoolers, especially middle school girls, man, they are the worst! I look at them, and I try really hard not to say "Try to embrace these moments. It all goes by so fast." It just sounds so goddamned sanctimonious. I know it's hard to imagine, with your baby crying all night or your toddler screaming on the floor of the WalMart in a tantrum or when your high schooler is mouthy for the 50th time this week, that 18 years goes by FAST, but it does, and once they leave you will never spend as much beautiful, brilliant, hilarious time with them ever again.
They grow, and hopefully, so do you, and hopefully, when they go you have enough other things in your life to fill the empty hole of your heart outside your body that is left behind when they are gone. Fill it, or at least cover the hole like one of those punch games on The Price Is Right. Cheerful colored tissue paper on the outside but what's underneath? BOOM! It's heartbreak! And just like any other grief, it sneaks up to smack you upside the head in the most innocuous moments. I went grocery shopping the week after my son left and, walking down the freezer aisle, I had to hold myself together like a ball of rubber bands when I realized there was no reason to buy his favorite frozen pizza, like I had every week for years, because he wouldn't be there to eat Pizza Wednesday with us anymore.
What a bitch. We aren't going to discuss where I'll be when my daughter moves out in a couple years. I wouldn't say I live for my son to come home, but when all four of us are together, and I'm throwing that Totino's in the oven for him again, my house is louder and heart is noticeably lighter.
So, back to my body, now wrinkled and worn, with silvered stretch marks on my belly and silver hairs at my crown. It's no longer required to stand and pass out programs at chorus concerts or to sit patiently in a parking lot to pick up a child from band practice each evening or track practice or theater rehearsals. It is ready for something more! Truly, it deserved better.
After ignoring it for years and just not looking too closely at the cracks, the children left and I suddenly had the time to examine what was there. And I wasn't thrilled (and neither was my doctor, who I visited for the first time in 10 years this spring.) There is a difference in neglect and ill-use and I found that I was guilty of both. It is one thing to age, and I certainly have, and gracefully, I hope, accepting the gray in my hair without dying it and recognizing gravity isn't kind to large breasts, and I'm glad I still have them at all! But, being complacent about my health might kill me.
My heart is broken and I'm afraid, my heart is broken too. I want to live to see my grandchildren get married. No, I don't have any yet, my oldest child is just 20, but if I don't take better care of myself, I'm not even going to make it to their 16th birthday so I can remind my daughter about the time she crashed us into a telephone pole while learning how to drive.
So I have started eating less and eating better. Taking the stairs more. And I joined a class where I can dance, something that has always brought me joy and certainly makes me healthier. And now I go twice a week and shake my jiggly ass and roll my rounded hips and, well, I do try to avert my eyes when I notice my belly bopping around as much as my breasts, but I know at least one of those things will improve.
Time marches on. It cannot be slowed, even if you stay up till 3 a.m. to stop tomorrow from coming as long as possible because when you wake you will drive your child hours away from your home and leave them there. My heart may be full of cracks today, but time will fill them with spidery lines of gold as the grief ebbs and I evolve. I just need to live long enough for that miracle to happen.
And tonight, my son comes home for the holidays.
It was once considered a thing to behold, soft in the right places, hard in the right places, curvy where curves are desirable and covered with peachy soft skin. That body spent a great deal of time uncovered, in tiny bikinis on beaches and hiking in short shorts and frankly, fully proudly nude, dancing in front of a lover or riding them into personal oblivion while sweat deliciously rolled down my back and the backs of my shaking knees.
It is now, first and foremost, a mother's body, because if you ride your lovers enough, at some point biology will win. It is now a sturdy body, usually covered in sensible clothes. One that carried three children - two that lived. One that nursed them and cradled them and taught them to walk, to dance, to swim. One that took head butts to the teeth on trampolines and indelicate pokes in the ass from toy lightsabers and frankly, years of neglect as that body became a counselor and tutor and chauffeur for the tiny humans it had birthed.
How does that Stevie Nicks line go? Time makes you bolder, children get older, I'm getting older too..."
The cruelest trick life has played on me was that of motherhood. Of creating two precious souls within my own body, then violently expelling them into the world where it immediately became my greatest responsibility and greatest joy to protect and nurture them until they are confident enough that they could LEAVE me. To raise beautiful, brilliant, hilarious children - so cool I'd rather spend my time with them instead of almost any other person on this Earth - with the goal that, if I did it right, they'd be prepared to walk away from me as they left to start beautiful, brilliant lives of their own. What in the actual fuck, Universe!? What kind of raw deal are you selling me? But you do it, as a parent, you do it with all the love in your desperate, hopeful heart, because nothing means more to you than they do, even knowing one day they must go.
That's where I'm at. That's where my children are. On the cusp of stepping out forever, they are now both in college, one still living with me and the other two hours away at school and truly, it took a thousand years to get here and absolutely no time at all. I look at the exhausted faces of young parents, the frustrated scowls of fathers of toddlers and mothers of middle schoolers, especially middle school girls, man, they are the worst! I look at them, and I try really hard not to say "Try to embrace these moments. It all goes by so fast." It just sounds so goddamned sanctimonious. I know it's hard to imagine, with your baby crying all night or your toddler screaming on the floor of the WalMart in a tantrum or when your high schooler is mouthy for the 50th time this week, that 18 years goes by FAST, but it does, and once they leave you will never spend as much beautiful, brilliant, hilarious time with them ever again.
They grow, and hopefully, so do you, and hopefully, when they go you have enough other things in your life to fill the empty hole of your heart outside your body that is left behind when they are gone. Fill it, or at least cover the hole like one of those punch games on The Price Is Right. Cheerful colored tissue paper on the outside but what's underneath? BOOM! It's heartbreak! And just like any other grief, it sneaks up to smack you upside the head in the most innocuous moments. I went grocery shopping the week after my son left and, walking down the freezer aisle, I had to hold myself together like a ball of rubber bands when I realized there was no reason to buy his favorite frozen pizza, like I had every week for years, because he wouldn't be there to eat Pizza Wednesday with us anymore.
What a bitch. We aren't going to discuss where I'll be when my daughter moves out in a couple years. I wouldn't say I live for my son to come home, but when all four of us are together, and I'm throwing that Totino's in the oven for him again, my house is louder and heart is noticeably lighter.
So, back to my body, now wrinkled and worn, with silvered stretch marks on my belly and silver hairs at my crown. It's no longer required to stand and pass out programs at chorus concerts or to sit patiently in a parking lot to pick up a child from band practice each evening or track practice or theater rehearsals. It is ready for something more! Truly, it deserved better.
After ignoring it for years and just not looking too closely at the cracks, the children left and I suddenly had the time to examine what was there. And I wasn't thrilled (and neither was my doctor, who I visited for the first time in 10 years this spring.) There is a difference in neglect and ill-use and I found that I was guilty of both. It is one thing to age, and I certainly have, and gracefully, I hope, accepting the gray in my hair without dying it and recognizing gravity isn't kind to large breasts, and I'm glad I still have them at all! But, being complacent about my health might kill me.
My heart is broken and I'm afraid, my heart is broken too. I want to live to see my grandchildren get married. No, I don't have any yet, my oldest child is just 20, but if I don't take better care of myself, I'm not even going to make it to their 16th birthday so I can remind my daughter about the time she crashed us into a telephone pole while learning how to drive.
So I have started eating less and eating better. Taking the stairs more. And I joined a class where I can dance, something that has always brought me joy and certainly makes me healthier. And now I go twice a week and shake my jiggly ass and roll my rounded hips and, well, I do try to avert my eyes when I notice my belly bopping around as much as my breasts, but I know at least one of those things will improve.
Time marches on. It cannot be slowed, even if you stay up till 3 a.m. to stop tomorrow from coming as long as possible because when you wake you will drive your child hours away from your home and leave them there. My heart may be full of cracks today, but time will fill them with spidery lines of gold as the grief ebbs and I evolve. I just need to live long enough for that miracle to happen.
And tonight, my son comes home for the holidays.
